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Flatpak haters seem to believe that if an app isn't on their distro's repos, it's the developers' fault.
(lemmy.world)
this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2024
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Just compile from source?
Back in the day, when I installed my very first Linux OS, I had a wireless stick from Netgear. Wireless Drivers back then were abysmal, so I had to compile them from source (literally 15 mins after seeing a TTY for the first time). After I had found out how build-dependencies and such worked somehow and ./configure completed successfully for the first time, the script ended with the epic line:
configure done. Now type 'make' and prayAh, I had one of those wireless sticks from Netgear as well, probably a different model but still a royal pain to get it working.
Luckily ndiswrapper has become a thing of the past nowadays.
Because it's always so easy to compile everything you need from source! Just make sure to download, compile and install the dependencies first as well. Oh, and the dependencies' dependencies. And the ones from them. And so on. Unless you're lucky enough that there are already packaged dependencies available for you. Don't know how to compile? No problem, just read the documentation. You can be absolutely 1000000% dead serious sure that everything you need to know is documented and extremely super duper easy to understand if you don't know the source code or barely know how to code at all. And if not, maybe you can find the bits of information on the respective Discord server. It will probably be also very intuitive to know which build options you have to set in which way and which ones even exist. And that without causing conflicts with other packages you need to compile. Still got got problems with compiling? EZ, just open a bunch of issues on the respective GitHub pages. (If present. Otherwise, try to find another way to contact devs and get support, Discord for example.) Maybe, about six months later you're lucky to get a response. And if not, don't worry. Some will tell you, you should RTFM or are an idiot. Some will just close the issue because your platform isn't supported anyway. Then you know, what you did wrong. Also don't mind if your issue gets ignored.
If you finally managed to compile everything from source, congratulations! Now run the program and test if everything is working. If it's not or if it is crashing, don't worry! In developed and civilised countries you can just buy a shotgun and blast your own head away to end this suffering.
EZ! Just compile from source! /s
I just complie from source some lightweight programs that are too niche for repositories. I am in no way advocating for full source compilation of every program in your system, that's a security and usage nightmare. Flatpack does have its use for sandboxing an environment. I personally use it for windows applications in bottles.
My workflow always definitely includes multiple weeks to debug random issues with building the tools I need to use. Totally a scalable and good solution to dump this work on the end user.
You have rediscovered LFS
This doesn’t scale. If I have a bug and my package has about two dozen dependencies which can all be different versions, and the developer can’t reproduce my bug, I’m just screwed. Developers don’t have the time and resources to chase down a bug that depends on build time variables.
Ask me how I know this happens.
I like the ports tree that only compiles from source, yes it's slow, but you know the binaries you make are pure.
Not optimal
Yes, it would depend on your flatpack usage. For me I only have like 5 programs compiled from source and one flatpack (bottles) because of the sandboxing
That's not good. It breaks the system as there isn't any change control with that unless your using something like Gentoo. Get your packages from the package manager.
None of the packages I compile from source are essential to my working system. I have a private chatbot to test, some emulators and dsda-doom.
Every one of those programs can be one or two versions obsolete and it won't make a difference.